OG: History

This page is part of the OG article.

2015/2016 Season: From Underdog to TI Favorite

Team OG was originally formed under the name (monkey) Business and was comprised of both experienced veterans in n0tail and Fly as well as new and upcoming talents in Miracle-, Cr1t- and MoonMeander. The team achieved their breakthrough during the Frankfurt Major, defeating European powerhouse Team Secret in the grand finals. The team continued to have a strong presence in the European Dota scene, but after a fourth-place finish at The Summit 4, OG's dominance began to wane and ended with a 7-8th place finish in the Shanghai Major. Despite this, the team rebounded with a 3rd place finish at EPICENTER and claimed a second Dota Major Championship title at the Manila Major. The squad proceeded to defeat Natus Vincere at ESL One Frankfurt 2016, winning the tournament and securing their invite to The International 2016.

OG performed well in the group stage of The International 2016 and finished first in their group. Despite this, the team was unable to maintain their momentum and fell to the loser's bracket against MVP Phoenix. 7ckingmad would later say in his 'Reflections' interview with Duncan "Thorin" Shields that they chose to play MVP Phoenix after their 'complete domination' of them at the Manila Major, and that this may have been a mistake. Following this unexpected loss, the team was eliminated by TNC Gaming and finished 9-12th, in what has been referred to as one of the biggest upsets in professional Dota 2. Shortly after their disappointing run, OG announced that MoonMeander would no longer be an active player, and that Cr1t- and Miracle- would be leaving the team. In the same 'Reflections' interview, 7ckingmad claimed that it was a personality conflict within the team that led to the removal of Moonmeander, and that once the team wasn't remaining as 5, it prompted Miracle to consider other offers.

2016/2017: Reigning Champions

To replace Cr1t-, Miracle- and MoonMeander, OG added Jerax, formerly of Team Liquid, Ana, and Alliance's s4. s4 would take on the offlane role, which was a new position for him but with familiar heroes in his signature Puck, Batrider, and Magnus. Ana came to the team from a substitute position for Invictus Gaming. With the addition of these new players, OG made a strong start to the season by claiming first place at the Autumn Major in 2016, held in Boston, USA, to become the first team to ever defend a Major title in Dota 2 history. The team was directly invited to the Winter Major for 2017, held in Kiev. After securing a top seed finish in the group stage (finishing 3-1), they battled their way to the grand finals, beating Team Random, Evil Geniuses, and ultimately Virtus Pro in the grand finals to claim the Mystic Staff. The Grand Finals series for the Kiev Major was the first Valve event Grand Finals to go to a game five since The International 3; with s4 having played in both.

Afterwards, OG seemed unable to maintain their rhythm, finishing The Manila Masters in 5-6th place and failing to qualify for the main event of EPICENTER 2017. Nevertheless, they once again entered the year's International as strong favourites for the title. However, in keeping with their slowdown from the few months prior, OG failed to make it to the upper bracket in the group stages and were ultimately eliminated by LGD.

OG dominated the competitive Dota 2 scene during the era of Valve-hosted Major Championships between TI5 and TI7. During this period, OG won four of the seven official Dota Major Championships, cementing their status as legends of the game. OG currently hold several world records in Dota 2 as the only team to win multiple Dota Major Championship titles as well as claiming consecutive Major victories and defending a Major title as returning champions. Despite this, the team would have to wait another year and undergo more roster changes before they could claim the Aegis of Champions.

2017/2018: Dota Pro Circuit

With Valve's new Dota Pro Circuit system, OG looked to once again set themselves up as a strong contender for The International 2018. After ana left the team to take a break from competitive Dota, Ukranian player Resolut1on joined the squad to fill the vacancy. With their new addition, OG dove into the qualifiers for the first events of the Pro Circuit, but the team were unable to qualify for the first three events. They only came close to qualifying in the last qualifier, for StarLadder Season 3, where they lost in the grand finals to Team Secret.

Their first qualifier victory and confirmed LAN attendance would be for Dota PIT by the end of September 2017. Despite narrowly failing to make the top four at the LAN, and thus securing themselves qualifying points for TI8, OG's results would soon start to look better. By November, they had secured two more qualifiers, for MDL Macau and Captains Draft 4.0, and had received an invite to DOTA Summit 8. All three events, taking place in December 2017 and early January 2018, would yield OG qualifying points, as the team reached the semifinals for Captains Draft and DOTA Summit and even won MDL Macau, ahead of TNC, for their first LAN victory of the new season. Throughout early 2018, the team's results would finally meet expectations with OG dominating the European qualifier scene, with successful qualifications for ESL One Katowice, The Bucharest Major, DreamLeague Season 9, DAC 2018, and EPICENTER XL. ESL One Katowice would be the team's first LAN appearance at a Major in the new Pro Circuit system.

Sadly, results at their first two Major LAN appearances of 2018, at ESL One Katowice and The Bucharest Major, in February and March respectively, were very disappointing. The team failed to break out of the group stage at both events. At ESL, using a double elimination group system, OG would narrowly miss qualifying for the main event, losing 0:2 to rivals Team Liquid in the lower bracket final of their group. The Bucharest Major featured a Swiss group stage, where OG were once again knocked out by Team Liquid in the last round of the group stage. After returning from their LANs, the team would reflect upon their poor LAN results and in the following days coach 7ckngMad would be seen playing for the team instead of Resolut1on. Days later, Resolut1on's departure from the team was confirmed and OG would no longer be eligible to be directly invited to The International 2018 or for the regional qualifiers. They would have to qualify all the way through the open qualifiers.

Despite the roster change, the team easily won the MDL Changsha qualifier. 7ckngMad would continue as their stand-in for the DreamLeague LAN event, where the team once again narrowly missed a top four spot, falling to Newbee in the lower bracket and finishing in 5-6th place. However, their result at DAC 2018 was very disappointing, as they were narrowly eliminated in the group stage after a tiebreaker loss to Vici Gaming. With another qualifier win for ESL One Birmingham and an invite to the China Dota 2 Supermajor, OG would be attending the last four Majors of the season. At EPICENTER XL, the team surprisingly managed to dominate their group and secure an upper bracket spot, but failed to win a single map in the playoffs and once again narrowly missed a top 4 spot. MDL Changsha saw the team once again have a good group stage, narrowly securing an upper bracket spot. However, they were yet again unable to win a single map in the playoffs and finished 7-8th after being swept by both VGJ.Storm and Newbee.

After another disappointingly early exit at ESL One Birmingham despite topping their group, losing out to Fnatic in the first round of the playoffs, the scene was shocked by the departure of s4 and Fly to Evil Geniuses. The latter had been a founding member of the original OG/(monkey) Business team and had been present for every single one of the team's four Major victories. As a result, the remaining members decided to pull out of the China Dota 2 Supermajor, the last Major of the season, in order to find players to complete their roster. Due to Resolut1on's departure, the team was already not eligible for an invite to The International 2018 or for the regional qualifiers. In early June 2018, with some time remaining before the open qualifiers started, the team was able to announce a full roster with Finnish pubstar Topson joining and ana returning to the team. As a result, 7ckngMad would play offlane and N0tail would move to the hard support position.

The International 2018: A Dota 2 Cinderella Story

TI8 was looming, but OG still had a tough road ahead: the brutal Bo1 gauntlet of the Open Qualifiers followed by the Regional Qualifiers. Due to the instability of the European scene in the past season, the Open Qualifiers were unusually stacked, yet OG managed to easily secure a Regional Qualifier spot through the first Open Qualifier. The team showed even more promise throughout the Regional Qualifiers, ending the group stage without dropping a single game and taking the direct route to the finals in the playoff bracket. There, they would meet another new team in Wind and Rain, whom they defeated 3-1 on the backs of Topson's Pugna and ana's Phantom Lancer to become the only European Qualifier team at TI8.

Placed in Group A alongside DPC giants Team Liquid, PSG.LGD, and Mineski, OG's task at TI looked daunting. It would not get any easier after disappointing results on the first day of the Group Stage; despite taking a game off of favorites PSG.LGD, they were later swept by Team Liquid. As a result, after two days of the group stage, OG found themselves in the lower half of Group A. But a fantastic third day in the group, going 5-1 in total, dropping only a single game to Fnatic, would prove to be enough to secure OG a top 4 finish in their group and thus a spot in the Upper Bracket of The International 2018 Main Event.

Group B winners VGJ.Storm naturally chose OG as their opponent in the first round of the Upper Bracket, as OG was still looking like an underdog. However, OG shocked their opponents, beating them in two straight games. Still, OG was considered the underdog for the next round against Evil Geniuses, where they would meet up against former teammates Fly and s4. Not unwarranted, however, as EG had been showing a fantastic performance up until this point. But it would not be enough against OG, who beat them 2-1 in an intense series for a spot in the Upper Bracket Final against heavy favorites PSG.LGD. And again, against all odds, OG would prevail and secure their spot in the Grand Finals in another intense, nail-biting series against PSG.LGD; Game 3 had OG with their backs against the wall and LGD looked prime to take their Ancient. With ana's Spectre down without buyback, it would be Topson's Arc Warden that almost single-handedly defended against three LGD members and led the chase after the remaining two LGD members as they attempted to back off. With few heroes left, LGD was unable to stop OG's assault on their own Ancient.

The Grand Finals would see a rematch with PSG.LGD, and it would be only the second time a TI Grand Finals went the full five games. OG took Game 1 on the backs of Topson's signature Monkey King and ana's Spectre. But LGD would hit back hard, taking back-to-back games and putting OG's backs against the wall once again in Game 4; after a relatively even early and mid-game, LGD took the lead after consecutive kills on ana's Phantom Lancer and Topson's Invoker and were able to secure two lanes of Barracks. But mistakes on LGD's part and OG's fantastic teamfight execution in LGD's safelane resulted in Ame's Morphling being dead for two minutes without buyback and OG were able to take their own lane of Barracks. From that point on, OG were firmly in the lead, but a clutch Blink-Call by Ceb would secure OG's comeback with three members of LGD dead without buyback. LGD did not let themselves be shaken from that game, though, as they came out swinging in the final game of the Grand Finals; on the back of fy's fantastic rotations on Earthshaker, LGD were able to take a sizable lead after the early game. But once again it would be OG's superior teamfight execution, this time around Roshan's pit, that allowed OG to take a commanding position and finally the game. With that, OG were crowned as the champions of The International 2018. They took the long way from the Open Qualifiers and were considered underdogs throughout the entire event until the final game, but they ultimately showed the necessary resilience to come out on top. It would be the first time that the West was able to take two TI championships in a row, as the familiar East-West cycle of TI champions was finally broken.

As bearers of the ultimate symbol of victory, these names shall forever be inscribed upon the Aegis of Champions:

2018
Anathan “ana” Pham
Topias “Topson” Taavitsainen
Sébastien “Ceb” Debs
Jesse “JerAx” Vainikka
Johan “N0tail” Sundstein

Valve Dota Team ()

2018/19

In November 2018, ana left the team after deciding to take a break from the professional scene, with Pajkatt and iLTW substituting for him until he returned in March 2019.

In April 2019, the team played against and lost to the OpenAI Five, a group of artificial intelligence bots that learned to play the game entirely through machine learning, in a live exhibition series in San Francisco. Later that month, Titouan Sockshka Merloz replaced Cristian ppasarel Banaseanu as team coach. The team earned a direct invite to The International 2019 by finishing in the top 12 of that season's Dota Pro Circuit. There, they went 14-2 in the group stage, advancing through the upper bracket before defeating Team Liquid in the grand finals 3-1, making them the first ever repeat champions of an International, being awarded $15.6 million out of the $34 million prize pool.

Congratulations to OG, Grand Champions at The International 2019.

OG rebuffed every challenger and silenced all critics as the first reigning champions in the history of The International to successfully defend their hold on the Aegis of Champions.
[...]
As bearers of the ultimate symbol of victory, these names shall forever be inscribed upon the Aegis of Champions:
2019
Anathan “ana” Pham
Topias “Topson” Taavitsainen
Sébastien “Ceb” Debs
Jesse “JerAx” Vainikka
Johan “N0tail” Sundstein

Valve Dota Team ()

2025/2026 Season

After failing to qualify for several Tier 1 Tournaments, OG released their roster and signed a team from Southeast Asia.

“This move marks a new chapter in OG’s journey as a truly global esports organization. From Europe to Southeast Asia, our story has always been about people, players, fans, and communities united by passion and resilience. Expanding into SEA isn’t just a geographic shift; it’s about embracing a region with incredible talent and energy that has shaped Dota 2 for years. What excites me most is the chance to reinvent ourselves while staying true to who we are, Dota 2 has always been part of OG’s DNA, and this new roster gives us fresh energy, new perspectives, and a chance to write another great story. The future of OG is global, competitive, and more connected than ever.

Xavier Oswald, OG Co-Owner and CEO

“What makes OG special has never been where we come from, it’s who we are and how we play. This new chapter in Southeast Asia is proof that the OG spirit can live anywhere. These players have the hunger, the humility, and the fire to compete at the highest level. I’ve watched SEA Dota for years, it’s raw, emotional, and full of heart. That’s exactly what OG is about. I can’t wait to see what we can build together.

Sébastien “Ceb” Debs, OG Co-Owner